


Come Morning

by yet_intrepid



Series: The Skies I'm Under [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Civil War, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 12:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4746170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Faramir's pulse is racing. The Eight-First Pennsylvanian is Boromir’s regiment and Boromir has been missing nine months now, nine harsh months of grief and near despair. For nine months, the world has failed to turn, and now Faramir finds himself dizzy with hope."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Morning

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Faramir is seventeen in this fic (which, yes, means he lied about his age to join up in search of Boromir). 
> 
> 2\. The battle of Cold Harbor sucked a lot. You should research it if you want to cry.
> 
> 3\. This AU is vast and sprawling. There will probably be more of it. Some parts are happier because they are about cowboys and not about early trench warfare.
> 
> 4\. See end notes for a (spoilery) trigger warning.

_June 2, 1864  
11:30 p.m._

There’s yelling at the edge of the camp.

Again, Faramir thinks, and although his gut turns, he ignores it. He turns the pencil in his hands and goes on sharpening it. He’s not going into another battle without anything to identify his body, not after seeing Spotsylvania Courthouse, and pencil seems better than pen. Less likely to bleed, if it gets wet.

The yelling gets louder. Closer.

Faramir swallows. He’s not going to panic. He’s not going to think. But the voice is familiar, so he gets off his bedroll and heads out of the tent.

“Faramir! Faramir Steward, you bastard son of a—”

It’s Beregond. Faramir steps into the firelight.

“There you are!” Beregond, out of breath, grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him hard. “There’s a man—just came in, reported to the Eight-First—”

Faramir’s already moving, wresting out of Beregond’s grip. His pulse is racing. The Eight-First Pennsylvanian is Boromir’s regiment and Boromir has been missing nine months now, nine harsh months of grief and near despair. For nine months, the world has failed to turn, and now Faramir finds himself dizzy with hope.

“Hold up!” Beregond calls, rushing after him. “Look, it might not be your brother, and if it is, he’s wounded and he’s got a real fever. Slow the hell down, Faramir, you’ve got to ask first!”

Faramir stumbles over himself as he halts. Big as this is, it’s nowhere near sure enough to risk a desertion charge. He spins around, looking for the captain of his company, but it takes precious minutes and endless questions before he finds himself saluting. He can hardly talk and Beregond rescues him, framing the request correctly.

As soon as they’ve been handed their passes, Faramir’s running in the dark, dodging people and tents, making his way over to the Eighty-First. When he gets into their section of the camp, the men clear out of his way.

“Where,” he starts demanding, “ _where_ ,” but somebody’s got a hand on his arm and is leading him and Beregond towards Captain Imrahil’s tent.

Faramir stumbles in. He blinks in the sudden lamplight and salutes blankly, but he’s hardly heard Beregond starting to explain their presence before his eyes land on the cot across the tent.

Boromir is there.

He’s sitting up, stubborn and dirty and streaked with blood, and Faramir is kneeling in front of him before he even thinks, his right gripping his brother’s left and his own left moving gently to Boromir’s face. Boromir’s fingers are in Faramir’s hair and they are home; they have each other again at last.

“What,” says Faramir, low and pressed for air, “what the devil did you think you were doing, scaring me like that, Boromir, what in God’s own name—”

“Where did you learn that,” Boromir mutters back at him.

Faramir cradles Boromir’s head, looks at his eyes. They’re a little glassy. “Learn what?”

“To talk like that,” says Boromir. “What the devil. God’s own name. Since when do you swear, kid?”

“Since I joined the army,” Faramir says, tiredly. “You learn.”

“Oh,” says Boromir, and then he suddenly seems to see Faramir for the first time. He pulls at the fabric of the blue uniform jacket, his face bending into agony. “Tarnation, Faramir, you didn’t!”

“I had to look for you.” He feels a defensive itch, but he’s too worn to pick at it. “I couldn’t live without looking.”

Boromir closes his eyes. Faramir feels him swaying a little, moves to support him. And then he looks properly himself and sees the bandaged leg, sees that the blood is still fresh.

“You need to lie down,” he says, and then, “Boromir, you need to go see a doctor.”

“Not going anywhere,” Boromir says. He opens his eyes again, musters up a grin. It’s faded and weak, but it’s familiar, and Faramir breathes a shocked little laugh at the sight of it. “Spent a sight too long getting here to just up and leave. Besides—”

“Besides what?” Faramir demands.

“Couple things,” Boromir says, and his grin has slipped away. “First off, I’m not so eager to get rid of my leg. Might hurt like hell but I’m fond of it, you know?”

“God—” Faramir starts in a whisper. Boromir laughs, and Faramir doesn’t appreciate it. Boromir’s losing his leg?

“Second,” Boromir says, “I got some fellows to fill me in on what we’re facing out there. And I’d take the leg off myself if I could keep you out of that.”

Faramir swallows hard. He’s been trying not to admit it to himself, but he’s scared; everybody’s saying the assault tomorrow’s going to be bad. And he doesn’t want to fight. He never did.

He only wanted his brother back.

“Hey,” Boromir says, brushing his thumb roughly over Faramir’s cheek, and Faramir realizes he’s crying. “Hey. We’ll make it, you hear me? We’ll make it through today and we’ll make it through this goddamn war. You think I walked across two states on a busted-up leg just for one of us to bury the other?”

Faramir shakes his head through the thick of his tears. “But,” he starts, half-heartedly.

“None of that, kid.” Boromir is swaying again. “Help me lay down?”

Faramir eases him down onto the cot, lifting the wounded leg as carefully as he can. Beregond and some of the men from the Eighty-First are coming over, slowly, so Faramir looks up questioningly.

“Hospital,” one of them says. “Captain’s orders.”

Faramir nods, wiping savagely at his tears with a filthy sleeve. Beregond passes him a handkerchief that’s mostly clean and has the decency not to watch him blow his nose. Not that Beregond hasn’t seen him piss and bleed and vomit and even cry before, but he’s never felt as exposed as now.

Boromir’s grumbling about the hospital, and Faramir aches to go with him, but he knows it’s a risk. He’s only got leave to go to the Eighty-First, and if he goes to the hospital he’ll want to stay.

So as they turn the cot into a stretcher, Faramir takes his tears and slips away. He leaves behind Boromir’s fluid swearing and the puddle of lamplight, and heads back to his regiment with the darkness spinning around him.

Come morning, the world may be darker still.

\----

_June 3, 1864  
5:00 a.m._

The chloroform sinks into Boromir’s lungs and he is reluctantly grateful, breathing it in. Stories of men dying under anesthesia linger in the back of his mind, but he’s hardly even slept since the bullet hit, and fuzzy painlessness draws him downwards.

But he lands on his feet, lands running again, panting and lost with Johnny Reb behind him. He’s going to get shot; he’s going to die right here right now, so far from his company that Father and Faramir will never know. He’s out of cartridges and his sword’s in his hand but nobody ever taught him how to use the damn thing and he’s going to damn well _die_.

The bullets rush overhead. He just keeps going, hoping he’s facing the right direction. Hoping the lines aren’t tangled up. Hoping, begging, praying, anything. He just wants to make it.

But then there’s movement in front of him and it’s not blue and somebody’s coming at him with a sword and he wants to yell, _they never taught me how to use this_ , but then it’s out of his hand and he’s surrounded, pinned down, lost behind the lines in a blur of trees and anguish.

Rope draws tight around his wrists and elbows.

(“Hold him down,” somebody says, and that doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t want to be held. He’s free now, isn’t he? He got free; now he has to find Faramir, which isn’t right because Faramir shouldn’t be here but he is, somehow he is.)

So he starts looking and the guns are going off again, and Faramir, where is Faramir? And then he hears it.

Faramir’s voice, on the other side of the lines. Calling his name.

He doesn’t have his weapons and everything hurts as he thrusts through the waves of gray. Something’s wrong with his leg. But he keeps going; he has to keep going. Faramir is yelling out— _Boromir, Boromir_ —and his voice is strained and breaking.

Boromir pushes onward and everything is fast around him but he’s too slow, too slow. Faramir is waiting for him. Faramir needs help. Faramir is going to be dragged away to a camp or stabbed through the gut or _exploded_. He’s too slow. He’s too slow. My God, please—

But everything is darkening.

\----

_June 3, 1864  
7:30 a.m._

The sun comes up fast and hot, burning away the fog. Just when they need cover, too, Faramir thinks, as he desperately shoves his tin cup into the ground loosened by Beregond’s bayonet. He dumps dirt onto the pile in front of them, the beginnings of earthworks to guard their trench.

A couple of shots echo down the line and Faramir feels himself flinch. Beregond, beside him, tenses too, and they glance at each other. When Faramir makes a face, Beregond gives a grim laugh in sympathy.

“Still always feels closer than it is,” he says.

Faramir nods. “Are we getting reinforcements?” he asks, but as soon as it’s out of his mouth he knows it’s a stupid question. They’ve retreated from the charge and now they’re digging a trench. They’ll have to outlast this.

He crouches lower and scoops up more dirt.

“Doubt it,” Beregond is saying, working just as feverishly beside him. “Really doubt it, but hey. We can hope.”

Faramir bites his lip. This can’t be the end, not now. Not when he’s just found Boromir again, not when everything he came here for is happening. He doesn’t want to die so close and still so far.

Maybe further rather than closer, he realizes bitterly as he jerks his hands away from Beregond’s bayonet. Sometimes men don’t make it through amputation. Or they catch something in the hospital, die of disease. Boromir could still be gone, with just one last meeting granted to them.

Faramir turns sharply to reach a new section of loose dirt and almost falls, pain spiking from his side.

“Hey there,” Beregond says. “Shit, Faramir, you’re bleeding.”

Faramir doesn’t look. If he does, he’s sure he’ll feel it worse, and he’s already dizzy. “I can keep on.”

“Like hell. Your coat’s soaked. Sergeant!”

Faramir fumbles for his cup, making an effort to go on with the trench. If it doesn’t get done, he’ll definitely die, and then he and Boromir won’t meet again on this earth, for sure. But soon the sergeant is pulling him into the best cover there is and opening his ripped coat with deft hands.

There’s a long cut across his right side, pulsing out blood. Faramir hisses through clenched teeth as they start ripping something up and tying the ragged strips tight around his chest. Now that he knows the cut’s there, his whole body throbs and burns. He focuses hard on Beregond’s voice.

“Bayonet caught you, looks like,” Beregond’s saying. “Damn fool things. There, sit down a second.”

“I’m all right,” Faramir tries to insist, but his voice shakes.

“Like hell,” Beregond says again. “A little rest’s not gonna kill you.”

“Might,” Faramir mutters. Another couple shots ring out.

“Not this time.” Beregond shakes him a little. “Buck up, okay. We’ll make it. Get back to your brother, huh?”

“Yeah.” Faramir breathes out unsteadily. “Yeah.”

The sergeant’s disappearing and Beregond’s picked up his bayonet to dig again. Faramir reaches for his canteen, sipping at it carefully. Not too much, though. The water might have to last.

The pain’s only getting worse as he sits there. He may as well be miserable doing something to help, he decides, and he drags himself up.

Boromir is waiting for him.

\----

_June 8, 1864  
2:00 p.m._

The doctors have no news. They never have news, or at least they say so, and Boromir half wants to bludgeon them with the crutch he’s been given.

He can hear the cannons and every blast shocks him still. He’s not afraid for himself anymore, God no. If he was going to die, he’d have done it already. But Faramir—

Faramir was never meant for this.

Boromir shifts on his cot, trying to sit up. There’s a nurse across the room, but he’s busy, and Boromir would rather do it himself anyway. Still, he’s tired. He’s always tired now.

If he could just get a damn cup of coffee, he thinks. Hasn’t had that since before they caught him back last October.

At last, he manages to push himself up with both hands. Then he leans, out of breath, against the wall of the tavern-turned-hospital he’s stuck in. He can’t remember claustrophobia this bad, even in nine months of captivity.

His fingers twitch and fidget and curl into a fist. He should be out there; he should be the one fighting. Faramir should be home with his philosophy books, with his botany samples, with some perfect classroom of eager students. But Boromir’s trapped, hardly even well enough to walk with his crutch, while Faramir’s fighting for his life.

Or losing it.

“Hey.” A voice breaks into his thoughts. He looks up to see a boy, maybe ten, carrying a tin coffeepot and a stack of cups. “Last chance at a cup of coffee. Want it?”

Boromir does his best to grin at the kid. Working for the suttlers can’t be an easy life, tending a shop like there’s no cannonfire in the distance. “Sure thing,” he says, digging in his pocket for coins. “You sell the rest already?”

Kid nods. “But I’ll come back if you want another cup.”

Boromir shakes his head, holding out his hands to take the coffee. “Better not have more than one. But hey, wait a minute. You got any news? Casualty lists?”

“No list since the one from the third.”

Boromir, swallowing, half-chokes. “There was a list from the third?”

Another nod. “Got it somewhere. Hey, don’t spill your coffee.”

The coffee could disappear into thin air and Boromir would hardly notice. “Come on,” he urges, “come on.”

“All right!” The kid finishes digging in his pockets and produces a paper. “What regiment?”

“One Eighty-Third Pennsylvania,” Boromir rattles off, desperately glad to have gotten that piece of information from Faramir’s friend. Berenor? Beregond? He can’t remember. “Name’s Faramir.”

The kid scans over the list. “No,” he says, finally. “Not listed.”

“Let me see,” Boromir insists, and only when he’s scanned the columns himself can he breathe again. Faramir survived the main assault. He could still be dead, easy, but it’s some hope and Boromir’s going to take it.

He grips the newspaper hard in both hands. Anything, he thinks. I’ll do anything, so long as he’s safe.

“Mister?”

The kid’s looking at him. Boromir looks up and realizes that, in his preoccupation, he’s dumped his cup on the floor.

“Who’s Faramir?” 

Boromir swallows hard. “My kid brother,” he says. “Joined up without telling me, the bastard.”

The kid’s brow creases and he scuffs his foot along the floor. “He’ll be fine,” he pronounces at last. “I know someone in the One Eighty-Third. His name’s Beregond and he looks after me. Bet he looks after your brother, too.”

“Yeah,” says Boromir, softly. “Bet he does. Thanks, kid.”

“Bergil,” the kid corrects him. “Hey mister?”

“Yeah?”

“You want another cup of coffee?”

\----

_June 12, 1864  
8:00 p.m._

When they get their orders to disengage, Faramir is almost too tired for relief. They slip from the trenches and march back to their empty camp. Two hours to rest and gather their gear, comes the word, and then they’re marching southeast across the James.  

Faramir doesn’t sit down. If he does, he’ll never get back to his feet. After exchanging a look with Beregond to say everything he’s too worn to put into words, he goes looking for an officer.

His sergeant gives him a grimly sympathetic glance, a pass for the hospital, and a warning about asking for leave too often. Faramir listens obediently, salutes, and takes off.

The walk feels long; his legs are heavy and cramped, and his side still pulses painfully. It’s not infected, thank God, but the healing’s been slow. If they could just rest one night—but they can’t, they never can. Faramir isn’t sure he’s slept through the night since Spotsylvania.

But it doesn’t matter. None of that matters as long as Boromir’s safe home and still alive.

He gets into the hospital, half-collapsing against the doorframe, and shows his pass to the orderly. Then he hears a voice, the best voice, the most familiar voice in the world.

“Faramir!”

Boromir is struggling up on a crutch. Faramir runs across the ward, catching his brother in his arms. The crutch falls to the floor.

They reel a little, gripping each other for support, and Boromir brings up his hand to cradle Faramir’s head. “I was so scared,” he mutters, and Faramir isn’t sure he’s meant to hear it, “so damn scared, good God…”

Then they pull back a little, and Boromir almost falls, so Faramir bends for the crutch. The movement presses up against the cut on his side, though, and hard as he tries not to wince, Boromir sees it.

“What’s that?” he demands. “Faramir, what happened?”

Faramir looks down at himself, at the blood still staining his coat. “It looks worse than it is,” he says. “I swear. It’s healing up. Probably be gone by now if I’d had some decent sleep, honest.”

Boromir’s brow creases. “But you can sleep tonight? Battle’s over?”

“It’s over.” Faramir sighs. “But we’re moving out. Just a few hours till we’re on the march.”

“Damnation.” Boromir shoves his crutch farther up under his arm. “God damn, Faramir. And I can’t go with you.”

“I’m glad,” Faramir tells him. “I mean, I’d be glad to be with you. But I’m gladder to know you’re safe. All those months, worrying, not knowing if you were alive—”

“Yeah,” says Boromir, “and now you’re the one who might end up dead.”

He fights his way back down onto his cot. Faramir, swallowing hard, kneels beside him.

“Today we’re alive,” he says. “We’re together.”

But come morning, he thinks, we may never be again, and his breath catches traitorously in his throat.

Boromir pulls him close again. “This goddamn war,” he says, and Faramir hides his face and they are still.

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: There is an amputation scene in the middle of the fic (after the heading "June 3, 1864 | 5:00 a.m.") The character is under anesthesia, but is hallucinating and partially aware. Please blame Megan and Martin for the inclusion of this scene.


End file.
